I'm a sports and sports business journalist with City A.M. Follow me for coverage of the industry behind sports and the money made by top athletes.

I've provided expert commentary on sports business for both TV and radio, including the BBC World Service.

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Guess who's back: Luiz returned to Chelsea on a hectic deadline day (Source: twitter.com/DavidLuiz_4)

Joe Hall

Premier League clubs have taken football into a new billion pound era this summer by spending more money than ever before in this transfer window.

The division's stratospheric spending broke the £1bn mark for the first time with a day remaining and a record-breaking deadline day, in which clubs spent £155m in 24 hours, pushed its total outlay to £1.165bn.

In six charts (plus an extra for the Championship), we look at just how unprecedented the Premier League's new found financial strength really is.

Premier League clubs' summer spending has more than doubled in just four years

In 2012 Premier League clubs had only ever spent £500m once before (in the summer of 2008 when Manchester City first had the petrodollars of the Abu Dhabi Group to splash), but the four years since have seen summer spending rise exponentially.

This summer the league's 20 teams spent an average of £60m each.

13 clubs broke their transfer record on new signings

Armed with more cash than ever before, 13 clubs felt financially strong enough to break their transfer records on new signings this summer.

Leicester broke their own record three times, first on the £13m Nampalys Mendy from Nice, then by signing Ahmed Musa from CSKA Moscow for £16.6m before finally blowing both deals out of the water with a £26m deadline day move for Sporting Lisbon striker Islam Slimani.

Yet the most notable record-busting move was Paul Pogba's £89m return to Manchester United. It means that for the first time this millennium, a Premier League club (and not Real Madrid) is in possession of the world's most expensive footballer.

Transfer deadline day

Italy's Serie A was the only league in Europe to spend even half as much as the Premier League

While the Premier League spending smashed past the £1bn mark, only Italy's Serie A of the biggest European leagues could match at least half that amount.

The huge disparity in spending power is largely driven by the paucity of TV income teams on the continent receive in comparison to their English counterparts. The Premier League's bottom team will receive a minimum of £100m this season, more than champions Leicester took home this year and more than all but five clubs in La Liga as well as the entire Bundesliga including Bayern Munich.

In fact, Manchester City alone spent more than most European leagues

Manchester City, the league's biggest spenders this summer, spent more money on their own than every league in Europe with the exception of Serie A, La Liga and the Bundesliga.

City in particular have been let loose by the easing of Uefa's financial fair play rules which now allow club benefactors to exceed the maximum permitted loss of €30m over three seasons if they can demonstrate a long-term plan for sustainability.

Furthermore, the Premier League has altered its short term cost control rules to allow clubs by boosting the maximum permitted wage bill increase per season from £4m to £7m.

Yet despite the growing disparity, European leagues received the majority of the Premier League's new riches

Although the Premier League's new found wealth has led to grumbles from the continent's traditional powerhouses and is believed to have led to Uefa assuring the four biggest leagues of four Champions League places every season, much of the league's TV money is flowing back into their coffers through transfer sales.

Most money spent by Premier League clubs was on players already in the division, but after that the biggest beneficiaries were Bundesliga clubs who received £161.7m from English teams — over a third of the league's entire income from player sales.

According to figures from the Delotte Sport Business Group, Premier League teams' total outlay to overseas clubs stood at £720m, a 23 per cent rise on the £585m spent on players abroad this time last year and representing 67 per cent of all expenditure.

Bundesliga signings:

Player

Moving to

Moving from

Age

Position

Fee

Leroy Sane

Manchester City

Schalke 04

20

Winger

£42.5m

Granit Xhaka

Arsenal

Borussia Monchengladbach

23

Central midfield

£38.3m

Henrikh Mkhitaryan

Manchester United

Borussia Dortmund

27

Attacking midfield

£35.7m

Ilkay Gundogan

Manchester City

Borussia Dortmund

25

Central midfield

£23m

Pierre-Emile Hojberg

Southampton

Bayern Munich

20

Central midfield

£12.8m

Lorius Karius

Liverpool

FSV Mainz

23

Keeper

£5.3m

Ragnar Klavan

Liverpool

FC Augsburg

30

Centre back

£4.3m

Havard Nordtveit

West Ham

Borussia Monchengladbach

26

Central midfield

Free

Alexander Manninger

Liverpool

FC Augsburg

39

Keeper

Free

Joel Matip

Liverpool

Schalke 04

24

Centre back

Free

The Championship also outspent most European leagues with a new record outlay, yet its spending came from a small collection of clubs

(source: infogram)

And it wasn't just the Premier League which set new spending standards for itself. The Championship spent a collective £215m on new players, according to figures from Deloitte's Sport Business Group, more than twice its previous record.

Yet nearly half of that outlay came from Aston Villa and Newcastle who, fuelled by £40m Premier League parachute payments, together spent a massive £103m on new players — more than Champions League finalists Atletico and Real Madrid who spent £95.4m.